gratified. I allude now to the standard of story for school purposes.

There is one development of story-telling which seems to have been
very little considered, either in America or in our own country,
namely, the telling of stories to _old_ people, and that not only
in institutions or in quiet country villages, but in the heart of the
busy cities and in the homes of these old people. How often, when the
young people are able to enjoy outside amusements, the old people,
necessarily confined to the chimney-corner and many unable to read
much for themselves, might return to the joy of their childhood by
hearing some of the old stories told them in dramatic form. Here is
a delightful occupation for those of the leisured class who have the
gift, and a much more effective way of reading aloud.

Lady Gregory, in talking to the workhouse folk in Ireland, was moved
by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the
splendors of the tale. She says:

"The stories they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that
turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors,
and of lovers' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving
witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for
seven hundred years."

I fear it is only the Celtic imagination that will glory in such
romantic material; but I am sure the men and women of the poorhouse
are much more interested than we are apt to think in stories outside
the small circle of their lives.